I am renting a server, running Ubuntu 16.04 at a company, let's name it company.org.
Currently, my server is configured like this:
- hostname:
server737263
- domain name:
company.org
Here's my FQDN:
user@server737263:~ $ hostname --fqdn
server737263.company.org
This is not surprising.
I am also renting a domain name, let's name it domain.org
. What I would like to do would be to rename my server as server1.domain.org
.
This means configuring my hostname as server1
and my domain name as domain.org
.
How can I do it correctly?
Indeed, the manpage for hostname
is not clear. To me at least:
HOSTNAME(1)
[…]
SET NAME
- When called with one argument or with the –file option, the commands set the host name or the NIS/YP domain name. hostname uses
the sethostname(2) function, while all of the three domainname,
ypdomainname and nisdomainname use setdomainname(2). Note, that this
is effective only until the next reboot. Edit /etc/hostname for
permanent change.[…]
THE FQDN
- You cannot change the FQDN with hostname or dnsdomainname.
[…]
So it seems that editing /etc/hostname
is not enough? Because if it really changed the hostname, it would have changed the FQDN. There's also a trick I read to change the hostname with the command sysctl kernel.hostname=server1
, but nothing says whether this is the correct way or an ugly trick.
So:
-
What is the correct way to set the hostname?
-
What is the correct way to set the domain name?
Best Answer
Setting your hostname:
You'll want to edit
/etc/hostname
with your new hostname.Then, run
sudo hostname $(cat /etc/hostname)
.Setting your domain:
Then, in
/etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/head
, you'll add then linedomain your.domain.name
(not your FQDN, just the domainname).Then, run
sudo resolvconf -u
to update your/etc/resolv.conf
(alternatively, just reproduce the previous change into your/etc/resolv.conf
).Both:
Finally, update your
/etc/hosts
file. There should be at least one line starting with one of your IP (loopback or not), your FQDN and your hostname. grepping out ipv6 addresses, your hosts file could look like this: